Friday, September 28, 2012

There's a new Call of Duty Black Ops 2 trailer out
highlighting, what else, the zombie mode.
The cooperative play modes include new options such as
"Tranzit" which puts players on a bus to more easily traverse a very
open world.

The open world is a
new wrinkle not to just zombie play
modes but to COD in general since even
single player has historically been very confined. Of course the survival modes are still there
along with a an 8 player team "grief" mode where one team can
manipulate items on the map to make it more difficult for the other team. Perhaps they should have called it douchebag
mode?

The new zombie modes are now built on the multiplayer engine
instead of the single player as they've done before which supposedly adds more
functionality.

With all these stumbling hordes lurching about I have to
wonder about the rest of Black Ops 2.
Most articles and trailers focus on the zombies. I'm fairly certain "Left 4 Dead"
and "Dead Island" had fewer zombie trailers than this game.

While I appreciate the improvements to the zombie mode it
seems at this point the whole thing should just be spun off into its own
series. We've had zombies since Call of
Duty: World at War. It's been half a
dozen games since then so it should be time.

Could it be that Treyarch is afraid a standalone zombie shooter
from its development house would fail without a popular franchise backing it
up? It seems that other play modes of recent Call of Duty titles have just been rehashes
of previous games with the only real development being the zombie modes. It's resulted in stale storylines and cooperative
play modes that look like DLC for a previous incarnation of the game.

Lest we forget, we still haven't seen anything more than a
refresh of the seven year old IW Engine which can still trace its roots all the
way back to Quake.

Well it's nice to hear someone actually inside the industry
call out game publisher tactics to milk a franchise. I've said it for years but former head of
Ensemble studios, Tony Goodman, responsible for the Halo RTS, Halo Wars. heard
it firsthand.

At that time he was asked to restyle a, Ensemble Studios RTS
game in development to fit the Halo model because Microsoft was unsure of an
RTS game on consoles. Goodman went on to
say that Microsoft told him to, "just paint over what you have with
Halo stuff." Which lead to the remark from Bungie.

I'm waiting
for the Call of Duty: Cold war Fly Fishing and Battlefield: Tank Racer
myself...

If you've thought that Robot Entertainment's Orcs Must Die 2
is a bit chauvinistic, a new Booster back is available called "Family
Ties" that introduces among other things Female Orcs to the mix. Steam has a 20% off sale till September 30th bringing the
price down to just $3.99.

In a sad note for all those pre-order Borderlands 2 fans, it appears that all your efforts to
attain the rank of "badass" may be in vain due to a token reset bug
first reported via a YouTube
video. the bug causes you to lose all
your earned skill tokens whether they were spent or not. Gearbox is aware of the issue but as of this
writing there's no fix yet. There's
apparently some kind of workaround to prevent it happening again but currently
no way for Xbox 360 users to recover their lost tokens whether they're spent or
not.

Shaolin Pandas your thing? Addicted to WoW? Then you
probably already know that the latest add-on for World of Warcraft, Mists of
Pandaria is out and early visitors to the
lethal panda land are feeling some of the effects of Blizzard's media
blitz that preceded its arrival.
Apparently scores of breathless players have been flooding into the new
world causing strange effects. The net
result of this great horde made battlefield scenes look like the aftermath of a
grade school food fight. Lots of smear
everywhere...lol

If you're a fan of old games and you'd like to take a step
back down memory lane with System Shock 2 or Thief 2 on your Windows 7 PC then
today's your day. Someone found patches
and made them available to those of us who remember when multiplayer gaming
meant you were in the same room and had to be running IPX protocol.

The link is from
Rock, Paper, Shotgun, it's best to
ignore the War of Roses promo on the page, you know the one about skill. Skill is not only not an unlock (double negative I know) but not present
in gaming either. But then, you already knew that.

Information about a new AMD CPU (AMD likes the word APU)has
been leaked about a new Trinity APU
release. Named the 5800K it runs at 3.8Ghz (4.2 turbo) and includes 2 "modules" containing
4 CPU cores per and 4 MB of cache split down the middle. It also has a faster onboard GPU that bests
the performance of Intel's Core I3 integrated graphics. A solid mainstream part but knocking off the
modern equivalent of a Celeron with integrated graphics isn't exactly over
achieving. Oh yeah and it plugs into the
new Socket FM2 so you'll need a new motherboard. Sorry FM1 fans.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini apparently feels That Windows 8
isn't quite ready for prime time. At a
private meeting in Taiwan the Intel Ceo said that the the OS is being released
before it's fully ready.

Ok, can we stop this now?
When's the last time you installed an OS that didn't have a barrel of
patches within days of release. Even
apple can't claim that!

Beta testing's nice but until you get it into the hands of
the great unwashed masses you can't possibly deal with every glitch. Oh, by the way Mr. Otellini, you may want to
check Intel's archives. Specifically,
the bad batch of Sandy Bridge and Itanium CPU's.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Ok, this is from a forum post on the official BF3 forum. The discussion was about how to deal with cheats. That said, get a cup of coffee first...lol

Original Link to the forum.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agree that we should all
be careful before pointing fingers but that said, the advice to go to another
server is becoming increasingly ineffective.
These guys are everywhere. BF3
hacks are a multimillion dollar business
now and a Google search will fill your browser with links. Punkbuster is kind of a joke as it only gets
the most rudimentary of hacks.

Anyone who plays this game
long enough gets a feel for how a given game's going and if you're like me you
just know when something's up. I've had
lots of great games where I had many more deaths than kills and still had a
great time with players of any level. A
game played straight up is an awesome thing.
So awesome that hacks show up pretty quick when present.

Look at the scores for your
first hint. If you go into a 600 ticket
conquest and the game is 3 minutes old and the losing side is 200 tickets down
it's fairly obvious what's going on. On
a full server an entire team can't suck that badly especially with balanced
player levels on both sides. When you
check stats and see 38 kills and one death or similar domination, that's
another clue. I've been taken out by a
sniper outside the entrance to the Russian base on Caspian when I just stepped
across the line from the U.S.base entrance
That's not even possible but the killcam said differently. I bet real life snipers would like to get a
kill 5 miles away across a mountain and through a forest..lol

I currently have a 44 magnum
outfitted on 3 of my character classes.
I know for a fact that I can get a critical if not a kill shot at 350
meters with it as I tested it out on an unranked server when I unlocked
it. I've been less than 10 meters,
staring a player straight in the face and unloaded 3 shots almost point blank
and the other player was able to kill me and took no damage. Then I've had the same experience and things
went as they should. One shot to the
head with that gun at less than 50 meters is a kill shot, no exceptions. Was it lag? a hack? who knows but it ruined
my day for sure.

I've seen some servers
actually start enforcing level bans so that high level players can't
dominate. That's a bit unfair but
understandable to keep the game going for newer players. So how do cheats get around it? They buy a new key online, start a new
character, apply shortcut kits and suddenly a level 3 player has the ability of
a level 90. You can see it from the
tactics and of course the K/D ratio.
Nobody at level 3 really knows what's going on in BF3 even if they
played previous titles. It takes getting
used to. So a level 3 sniper shouldn't
be able to get a head-shot from 800
meters with the level of equipment available to them even with shortcut
kits. There's lucky then there's
suspicious.

I don't know how to stop the
cheating. I like the rewards and level
ups but they're also the reason people cheat.
It's stat addiction. The real
problem with cheating in BF3 may have less to do with the game and more to do
with the platforms it runs on. Most of
the hacks out there are DirectX video hacks which are almost impossible for PB
to catch. It seems most of the hacks that get caught are stat hacks to boost
health etc. Since those modify a game
variable they're easier to catch but if it's something that say removes all the
textures and just shows the players that's a hack on something the game can't
detect. It's like recording a video with
an Iphone pointed at a TV. No copy
protection is going to stop it because it's separate from the processes
involved in the broadcast but the information is there just the same.

I don't know any games out
there that don't have cheats in them. In
Orcs Must Die 2, for example there was a guy on top of the leader boards within
4 hours of the game's release with 1 Billion points! Not possible in that game even if your played 24/7 for 10 years! It's a hack.
But then, It's still fun and I don't care about the leader-boards.
because they have no effect on my game-play, everyone's pretty much equal no
matter what level they're at. Someone
who's hacked their way to the top of BF3, however, not only has the hack effect
but the legit bonuses from the game itself.

The only thing that EA/Dice
could do at this point would be to get tighter control of the keys and limit
volume purchases so the hack vendors can't operate. Maybe a start up or randomized DirectX check
as well. What we can do as players is
make the cheats uncomfortable. If your
team suspects a cheat and they're dominating a game then forget the spawn
captures etc. The whole team should just
go after that player. You're not going
to be playing the game the way it was meant to be played anyway so might as
well tar and feather the cheat. Or if
it's really bad all the honest players should just quit the server.

It's a UK website called
ShagAGamer.com that offers dating and "performance" tips to gamers
inexperienced with the intimate arts.
AKA virgins. Apparently, a recent
poll found a full third of the site's community admitted to being so
afflicted. Considering I keep running
into 8 year olds on Battlefield servers the numbers don't seem that
surprising...

Guess what? We have yet another
browser based exploit to worry about now but Microsoft promises a fix today
(9/21). Ars Technica reports that a as
of yet unpatched exploit in Internet Explorer 7 through 9 can allow malware
installation and turn your pc into a zombie.
The advisory applies to IE on all windows versions up to 7. You lucky Windows 8 Eval users dodged a
bullet this time as IE 10 is unaffected.
As it stands now users are being advised not to use Internet Explorer or
anything that relies on its facilities like web applets. Hopefully you're using Chrome to watch this week's
video report...

If you're like me and don't think
$60 for a video game is reasonable then you probably haven't seen much gameplay
action for the new Borderlands 2 release.
Luckily, viewers of Wednesday's PC Perspective podcast who stuck around
for the impromptu gaming afterward were treated to live gameplay. The lesson here, watch more live
podcasts! You might learn something.

Borderlands 2 released this week on
the 18th to the joy of salivating fans everywhere. I'm one of them but I felt the water bill was
more important since I appreciate having the ability to flush my toilets.

Nvidia has released the newest
Kepler family member aimed squarely at the midrange market in the guise of the
GTX660 graphics card. Note the lack of a
"Ti" moniker. This isn't just
a gimped version of the 660Ti it's a different graphics core called the
GK106. With Fewer streaming processors
and texture units compared to the 660Ti the card is aimed squarely at the ATI
7870 with a price point about $20 cheaper at $229 MSRP. It's been suggested that this is a good
upgrade for those still hanging on to old GTX 460 or GASP! 9800 GT's.

GTX 660 Ti

GTX 660

Stream Processors

1344

960

Texture Units

112

80

ROPs

24

24

Core Clock

915MHz

980MHz

Shader Clock

N/A

N/A

Boost Clock

980MHz

1033MHz

Memory Clock

6.008GHz GDDR5

6.008GHz GDDR5

Memory Bus Width

192-bit

192-bit

VRAM

2GB

2GB

FP64

1/24 FP32

1/24 FP32

TDP

150W

140W

GPU

GK104

GK106

Transistor Count

3.5B

2.54B

Manufacturing
Process

TSMC 28nm

TSMC 28nm

Launch Price

$299

$229

As seen from the chart (from the referenced article) the primary
difference between the 660 and the 660Ti besides the die shrink and lower power
consumption are the number of streaming processors, texture units and about 1
billion less transistors.

The new card retains the same perks
as it's more powerful cousins so you still get the same memory clocks, boost
features and display output options. For
a budget gaming build this would probably be the perfect choice especially if
the street price went below $200.

For those of you that might want to
give a little love to the indie gaming community there's a reasonably priced
pre-order on Steam that may peak your interest.
The game is called Ravaged from developer 2Dawn games.
It's a multiplayer shooter set in a post-apocalyptic Earth with equal
emphasis on vehicular as well as on foot battles. The development team consists of alumni from
the Desert Combat mod for Battlefield:1942 which infers some contact with the
original Dice team that went on to mold the Battlefield series.

From the gameplay videos it seems to be a
cross between the look and vehicular combat of the original Borderlands and the
multiplayer dynamics of a Call of Duty or Battlefield. For 24.99 pre-order it's probably worth a
shot if you're looking for an alternative to $60 launch prices.

Origin released yet another update
this week to fix download issues.
Specifics are:

- Fixed an issue that interfered with some users' ability to download
games.- Fixed an issue that prevented some users from
launching or quitting certain games.- Fixed an issue that was blocking some users
from logging in.

A short aside here. I know I complain a lot about high prices for
supposed "triple-A" titles but I have to give credit where it's
due. I was looking over my collection
and found that many of my fondest gaming memories came from Electronic Arts. Surprisingly enough, they weren't always the
giant evil empire we know today.

I'm old enough to remember the
battle chess game, Archon for the Atari and Apple PC's back in the 80's. That means I remember when EA was nothing
more than a few geeks in a Menlo park office hoping to make it big. EA's always known how to pick a winner no
matter if they produced or just published a game. With
picks like Battlefield, Need for Speed, Madden and dozens of others their
success is no mystery. They usually produce
a good product but for the past decade they haven't missed an opportunity to
milk a franchise like a skinny tick on a hound dog.

It's the typical American success
story which unfortunately ends with doing what you do best to the point of losing your soul.

A torch without a Blizzard...

So if you're like me and didn't want
to mortgage the house only to be disappointed by the money machine that is
Diablo 3 just to play a decent RPG, I may have good news for you. Torchlight 2 has been released and offers a
similar experience with some nice extras D3 could care less about. It's basically an RPG like D3 and that's no
accident considering there's some cross pollination between the development
teams at Runic and Blizzard. Reviews are
positive so far and it's definitely less of a risk at $20 than the $60 buy in
for D3.

Finally, A friend mentioned an
annoying trend that seems to be becoming more popular in triple-A titles lately.
Namely the huge update to support DLC.
For Example; to support the recent Battlefield 3 DLC, EA shoved a 2 Gigabyte patch onto my game rigs that took
the better part of an hour to download and install.

Two things come to mind.

The first one I have to credit my
friend for thinking of it. If we're not
buying the DLC why do I need to download it?
There's a better than even chance that I now have Armored Kill and Close
Quarters files on my pc even though I didn't buy them. That's just laziness. I don't believe for a minute that a game that
was at most a 6GB install needs 2GB in patches every 3 months to continue
working properly.

The second is that Origin needs to
offer an option to download an offline copy of their patches and upgrades so
that we don't have to waste time downloading the same files to multiple
computers. I mean c'mon, if you're a Netflix
subscriber with an ISP that has a bandwidth cap, just two PC's getting the latest BF3 download could prevent
you from seeing an entire movie for that month!

Valve's Steam meets us part way with
this with the option to backup game files but the issue there is that they
don't include any patches, just the original game files. So you get to download potentially years
worth of patches all over again.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

In the new revenue stream of triple-A game titles an initial
purchase isn't enough. With prices
upward of $60 and publishers announcing release schedules of paid DLC
(Downloadable Content) even before the original game is released, it's easy to think this is the way it's
always been.

Of course, it isn't...

Paid DLC is a marketing construct designed to keep the
revenue pump forever flowing for a given game franchise. Look at EA's Battlefield series or
Activision's Call of Duty for examples.
Even beyond DLC, these titles in
particular have added a paid subscription model to further enhance their
fortunes.

So is the only option to enhance a favorite game to continue
paying the publisher for new content?

They'd certainly like you to think so but a little time
spent in a Google search will show otherwise.
This is where we enter the world of game mods.

Game mods are just like DLC except they're usually created
by fans of the game and usually at no cost to the consumer other than a bit of
time. The motivations range from
extending the life of an old favorite to creating a completely new game built
on the bones of the original.

Pick any popular title from the past decade and you're sure
to find an active community of modders trying to make it better. In EA's original Battlefield 1942, for
example, a mod called Desert Combat completely re-imagined the game. It took
players out of the war torn Europe of WW2 and put them squarely at the center
of the Gulf War.

The mod was so successful that Dice (the development team)
was brought onboard to EA games and produced the follow up to 1942 called Battlefield
2. Dice continues to develop the
franchise for EA which to date has
spawned at least half a dozen sequels to the original for EA.

Valve's popular Half Life series has spawned dozens of mods
which in some cases evolved into popular games in their own right.

Unlike many publishers, Valve supports an active modding
community through their STEAM communities.
In the most recent case a new initiative called Greenlight has highlighted
a community effort to update the 1998 classic, Half Life. The mod is called Black Mesa and sprung from a
developer community known as Black Mesa: Source.

The video on this page shows an example of their work. Black Mesa: source updated the now dated look
of the original allowing fans of the franchise to experience the game
anew.

Other than the cost (Free) the differences between mods and
DLC are few. Mods come from fans and independent
developers. DLC comes from the original
publisher.

As such the quality
of the work can vary. A quick check of a
game's community forum is always a good idea before diving in. Also be aware
that Installation procedures aren't always a slick as a commercial offering, sometimes
requiring a few more steps to complete.
Support is generally only available from community forums and the
developers themselves.

In my examples the mods exceeded the original games and
afforded hundreds of hours of additional gameplay that otherwise would have
relegated them to collecting dust on the shelf.
Considering the escalating prices of new games and DLC, it might be
worth your time to see about breathing new life into an old favorite.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Borderlands2 released today (September 18,2012) with lines stretching around the block
at GameStop's and Best Buy's across the land.
They were populated by hopeful fans of the anime styled RPG who wanted
to be among the first to play the game.

Sadly, most of those people missed out on all those special
game bonuses only available with the pre-order. Membership has its advantages and those in
the Pre-order club have undoubtedly gained an advantage over the rest of us who
may have questioned the $60 price tag.

Or have they?

Like any marketing program, success depends on perpetrating
a myth. In this case the myth promises
premium content for a premium price. Reality
bears far less luster, however.

If given the opportunity to get a leg up on everyone else by
paying a little early then why not shell out the pre-order premium, right?

This is the first myth that leads us to believe that we're
buying into an exclusive club with perks only available to a select few.

Unfortunately, we soon find the perks do little to enhance
the game instead providing only a small ego boost when we show our
"special item" to our friends.
Remember SergeantJohnson in the Halo 3 ODST Pre-order?

Exclusivity is a
foregone conclusion as well when you realize that millions of other players
took advantage of the same pre-order.
Borderlands 2 is reportedly 2Ksoftware's highest selling pre-order to date by the way.

Another popular myth of the pre-order is the misplaced
belief that first come is first served.
This is why gamers wait in lines at midnight to purchase a copy hoping
to be among the first. As though a
shield of exclusivity guarantees a better experience than those who passed on
the offer. Ask the day one Diablo 3 players
how that worked out.

The last myth is less often seen in these times of $60
pre-orders but is still believed.

This one's all about price.
A few years back when pre-orders
were still relatively new, the primary reason to take advantage was a reduced
price. It's a practice still seen but
rarely offered . When it is the discount
isn't all that attractive.

Borderlands 2, for example was available for $54 until July
30th on Valve's Steam service. Not a
compelling motivator for the price conscious.
Publisher marketing teams have redefined value as full price plus extras
instead of full value for the money.
Think of it as the useless toy in a McDonalds Happy Meal that adds
nothing of value to a bland overpriced
child's meal.

Pre-orders are just one in a collection of marketing tools
in a sales arsenal. Developer's could
care less once the game's complete and publishers only care so far as their revenue
forecasts can take them. To ensure the
golden goose keeps laying, publishers have turned to subscription models and
add-on content known as DLC's.

Considering the long legs and eventual discount pricing of a game franchise, it's
unreasonable to pay a premium just to be the first.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Thunderbolt, not just for Apple anymore, New details about
Haswell, kinda, A new NVIDIA driver and more!

For those of us who are crazy enough to pay the extra price
premium to get decent gaming performance on a laptop it's a given that there's
going to be tradeoffs. Graphics
performance on these platforms will always outperform the meager integrated
offerings but it's still not the same performance we're used to on a
desktop. Lest we forget the issues with
power, weight, and of course heat with these mobile monsters.

So when an option comes along that can make just about any
mobile platform a gaming powerhouse with minimal effort I'm going to perk
up.

Apparently Lucid, you know the guys who were trying to make
NVIDIA and ATI play nice in the same rig?
Well, it appears they've come up with a solution to leverage the
bandwidth and connectivity of Thunderbolt to connect an external graphics
adapter to your laptop. Laptop Magazine
tried this out with a thunderbolt enabled motherboard and external graphics
adapter. The difference between the
performance with the external adapter and without was dramatic. A link to the video has been provided.

Remember that Thunderbolt has a direct pipeline to the PCI-E
bus so there's nothing really stopping a vendor from producing an
add-in external graphics product.
There's also nothing saying an inexpensive desktop PC with a thunderbolt
connection couldn't do the same
thing. Think of the possibilities,
gaming performance without the overhead. and high price. The only thing that stands in its way is public
adoption.

There has to be a
mainstream desire to do more than play angry birds on their laptop for
something like this to gain a foothold.
It's up to laptop and graphics vendors to make them see the light.

In platform news Intel released a few details about the
upcoming Haswell processor family. Unfortunately
unless you're really into 10Watt CPU's and multithreaded memory it isn't going
to be that big a deal over Ivy Bridge.
The big push with haswell is platform portability so that the same
architecture that powers your desktop PC can power your tablet as well.

In steam news the first Greenlight Titless have been chosen
among them a graphics overhaul mod to the original Half Life called Black
Mesa.

While certainly a work deserving of the spotlight, I still don't see Valve's $100 toll to get on
the community ballot as fair. Also Interesting
to note that the first game featured in the list of winners is an update to one
of valve's own titles. Talk about free
labor!

By the way, Black Mesa is scheduled for release on Steam's
Greenlight Friday September 14th. With
the buzz around this game expect the same slow download times and delays as the
recent Team Fortress 2 co-op.

It appears violent video games can raise your pain
threshold. A study in the UK found that people
who played violent video games for 10 minutes could keep their hands in ice
cold water longer than those who didn't.

So will it be long before we treat ourselves to a half hour
of resident evil or Battlefield 3 instead of anesthesia before undergoing
surgery? Ok that's a stretch but it is
an interesting study.

In somewhat related news a stroke victim that hasn't been
able to send an email or even type on a keyboard due to a condition called
aphasia was able to communicate using a hacked Kinect sensor. The victim's son figured out the specifics to
allow his mother to again communicate with the outside world.

Nice to see Kinect useful for something other than flailing
around in your living room while yelling at your big screen tv.

Valve, parent of Steam has been pursued by EA and offered up
to 1 Billion dollars for the developer and game outlet. Now we know where Origin came from. Guess EA figured if it couldn't buy them
they'd try to beat 'em!

Ol' Gabe is at it again issuing a dire warning to Microsoft
about "Trying to copy Apple"
Gabe's rumbling over the closed marketplace of the Microsoft Store and
it's barriers to a free marketplace.
Yeah Gabe and about that Greenlight toll thing?? Yeah, thought so....

Borderlands is due out on September 18th, we all know
that. But if you just can't wait to
start building your character there's a skill calculator designed to give you a
template to make him/her as badass as you dare.
Ah well, the marketing departments are busy. Still waiting for a Steam sale in 2014...

Team Fortress 2 is looking
for Halloween designs for its upcoming event.
Special maps and bonus items are a tradition around Halloween and this
year is no different. If you're one of
those who knows their way around the Steam Workshop you best get your creative
juices flowing before the October 1'st start of TF2's Scary season.

For all of you fans of Team Green, Nvidia has a new driver
for you that among other things enables TXAA and fixes some issues with SLI in
the 6x series of cards. Even my old 260M
in my laptop gets this new driver Nvidia is calling the R304. Note that Nvidia says this is it for the 7x
and 6x series of cards being included in regular driver releases moving them to
"legacy" status. The next
release dubbed R310 will not include them.

Thanks to all those viewers of the 2 part Windows 8
Enterprise Eval videos I posted last week.
In fact they were so popular (relatively speaking, I mean look at my
numbers...) That only my vids on BF3 shortcuts and some weather videos rate
higher. So I can only assume that my
viewing public Loves to play BF3 on a Windows 8 virtual machine during a
thunderstorm while counting the remaining minutes left on the eval..

Friday, September 7, 2012

This week! More Windows 8 madness, Armored Kill starts
rolling out, Valve's Greenlight has a toll booth and games as art?

Let's start off with the department of DUH!

Ars technica recently released an article entitled,
"Can a touchscreen fix Windows 8 on the desktop?" I had to stop for a moment after reading
that. Regaining my composure, I read through the article about the author's experiences with a Lenovo IdeaCentre A720 All
in one desktop PC. In short the author
felt that Windows 8 worked well with a touchscreen PC but was more of a nice to
have feature than a necessity.

Stop the presses! A touch optimized operating system worked well
with a touchscreen PC...

Among the many less than insightful observations was that
users may find it awkward to interact with a touch surface perpendicular to
their desktop. As though a user was
suddenly going to toss their input devices and instead sprawl across their desk to use the on screen
keyboard and swipes for daily
tasks.

Look, Windows 8 is optimized for touchscreen period. To try to pigeonhole it into the same dreary
workspace routines we've been getting eyestrain and carpal tunnel from over the
past 30 years is nothing short of ignorant.
The days of the keyboard macro
and special key combinations are on the way out. Why, because that's what the consumer wants.

They wanted to use an Iphone at work and now they can
regardless of the IT department's hatred.
They wanted to connect to work via their tablet and GotoMyPc
obliged. All that extra crap we went through with split
keyboards and marble mice was nothing more than an admission that we really
didn't like the way we were forced to interact with our PC's anyway.

This is another example of much ado about nothing. If Windows 8 is guilty of anything it's of
being a bit ahead of the curve on the desktop.
Inventive types have been trying to get rid of the mouse and keyboard
for decades. It's no surprise then that
when consumers wanted to do more than make a call or send a text on their
Smartphone someone in the desktop arena was going to take notice.

This time around it just happens to be Microsoft that got
the hint first. You can bet that if
Apple had released a touchscreen desktop OS, no matter how awkward, the tech
pundits would have embraced it. Then
again, Apple doesn't need to. MacOS is
likely not long for this world inevitably to be replaced by ever more powerful
IOS based devices. Apple and Android
have known that touch was the future for half a decade, we're just not used to
Microsoft getting a clue so early on.

In console news industry rumor currently targets spring of
2014 for the release of the next Xbox while the Playstation (remember
ORBIS??) is still rumored for late
2013.

Michael Pachter, console industry analyst, says the delay is
the result of "what is certain to be overwhelming demand among hardcore
gamers."

More likely it's the result of waiting for Intel price drops
on hardware capable of handling what EaLabels president Frank Gibeau calls,
"spectacular" games currently in development for the new consoles.

In the department of "who cares" Origin released
an update to its Origin client bringing it to version 9.0.11. The primary fix is correcting a problem with
patches being inconsistently applied to the user's game library. In practice with the BF3 patch it appears
that EA has ditched the separate updater and instead rolled the patch into
their repair installer.

For those into Crysis, Steam is having a sale on the
franchise this weekend with Crysis 2 available for $9.99 and the entire
collection including Crysis, Crysis 2 and Crysis Warhead for just $17.49. Warhead and the first game are also available
separately for $4.99/ea. Get yours
before the September 10th deadline if you care...

In FPS land we're drawing ever closer to the full release of
the next DLC pack for Battlefield 3.
Armored kill went live on PS3 for premium members September 4th preceded
by a large patch across all platforms the same day. Sorry PC and Xbox, you get to wait another
week for the DLC. For those of you who
chose not to pay for the game twice aka: not premium members, the regular
release is due out on the 18th for PS3 and the 25th for XBOX and PC.

That schedule follows the standard two week lead premium
members enjoy.

What's far more interesting than the new DLC, however, are
the tweaks from the latest patch that accompanies Armored Kill. As with most patches that precede DLC this
one's a big one coming in at over 2GB on PC and around 1.5GB on Xbox and
PS3. The changes it makes have a lot to
do with the DLC and community whining.

Yet again Dice has decided to fiddle with weapon
effectiveness making some weaker and others stronger. Most interesting is the removal of flare guns
for helicopter gunners in attack choppers and increased effectiveness of
rockets from other helicopters and jets.
Which means you better hope your pilot has flares. I know I've saved more than one helicopter
because the pilot didn't have them.

Here's the official list of vehicle and weapon related tweaks....

Damage output/range adjustments
• UMP: Increased the close range damage of the UMP but reduced its damage over
range. The UMP now has a sweet spot in CQB but suffers compared to the PP2000 at
longer ranges.
• PP2000: Increased the long range damage of the PP2000 to highlight its role
as a mid-range, low recoil PDW.
• M1911: Increased the minimum damage of the M1911 to make it fit better
between the Magnums and the M9/MP443
• M93: Reduced the M93R’s damage and range, as it was an obvious go to pistol
compared to the M9/MP443. Its recoil has been reduced for a smoother burst
action to counter the reduced damage.
• 12G Frag rounds: These rounds have been adjusted to do their damage in a
smaller area but to be more consistently apply the maximum possible damage.
• AA: Slightly increased the damage of the AA against infantry, the AA was
simply over nerfed in a previous update. The AA guns now also properly do
damage to MBTs again.
• 12 Gauge buckshot close range damage has been slightly increased.
• Slightly reduced the range penalty for the suppressor on the SCAR-H.
• Increased bullet velocity for the coaxial HMG, making it easier to hit
targets over longer ranges.
• Increased the minimum range of the 40mm Flechette and tightened the cone of
fire for more consistent damage levels.
• Slightly reduced the range bonus added by the heavy barrel on the 5.56mm,
5.45mm, 6.5mm Assault Rifles.
• Slightly reduced the range penalty for the suppressor on 5.56mm, 5.45mm, and
6.5mm weapons: AR, Carbine, and LMG.
• Slightly reduced the range penalty for the suppressor on the SCAR-H.
• Slightly reduced the range penalty for the suppressor on 5.56mm, 5.45mm, and
6.5mm weapons: AR, Carbine, and LMG.
• Slightly reduced the range bonus added by the heavy barrel on the 5.56mm,
5.45mm, 6.5mm Assault Rifles.
• Increased the damage of the M5K.

Removed flares from gunner position in
helicopters. With the right combination of unlocks, an attack helicopter could
be effectively invulnerable to lock on missiles. Removing the flares from the
gunner balances the attack helicopter against ground fire.
• Air Radar now shows friendly vehicles as well.
• Helicopter weapons can now destroy equipment with splash damage.
• The Laser Designator unlock on the Scout Helicopters has been changed from a
Pilot Upgrade to a new stance in the Copilot seat (position 4). Like the CITV
turret on the Main Battle Tanks, the Scout Helicopter’s Laser Designator is
permanently available to players who have received the unlock.
• Repair tool damage against enemy vehicles lowered by 10%.
• Changed reload behavior on Tank / Tank Destroyer cannon weapons to prevent
being able to fire 2 shots from different weapons quickly one right after
another.
• Firing mode can now be seen from the vehicle passenger seats where you are
allowed to fire your own weapons.
• Fixed the hit indicator showing when entering a vehicle after previously
shooting a soldier.
• Increased the damage helicopter and jet rockets do to helicopters, jets and
infantry.
• Increased the damage helicopter gunners and IFVs do to helicopters and jets.

All for the sake of DLC and somebody whining. I mean really? They had to mess with the
repair tool? Like the repair tool was somehow unbalancing the game? If you let someone get that close for that
long you deserve what you get.
Ratcheting it down 10% might give the victim another 1/2 second at
best.

I do like the splash damage tweak, however. It's always irritating to just miss a target
and inflict no damage. Of course Dice
will probably go overboard and everyone will start taking damage within a
virtual mile of the impact.

It's one thing to be in touch with your community but it's
quite another to exceed to their whims while not correcting core issues with
the game . I'm sick of game balancing
tweaks. Figure out the merits and
weaknesses of the arsenal and leave it at that! Yes a better sniper rifle with a better scope
is going to kill people more easily. A
tank shell should always have the same potential to do damage. So what if someone doesn't like it, that's
the game, you adapt and move on. It's
literally like Dice changes the rules with every patch! Enough with the tweaking already!

Steam's new Greenlight community project which aims to
showcase the work of indie game developers has decided to stick a $100 tollbooth
in their way.

It started out free on August 30th with submissions from hopefuls voted on by the Steam
community. Those with the most votes
would win a place in the Steam catalog.

Apparently community policing wasn't enough to keep the
rabble out, however. Games with sex
themes or questionable quality began almost immediately cluttering up the place
forcing Valve to devote extra resources to weeding out the baddies.

In an effort to prevent the initiative from becoming a full
time job Valve instituted the fee to try to curb the avalanche of
submissions.

It seems to me that the great experiment has already
failed. If you truly want an
unrestricted and uninhibited flow of creativity you can't put a toll gate
up. You have to take the chaff with the
wheat if you want to harvest. If it
means you have to develop community standards and pay a full time employee to
enforce them to get what you're after then just do it. This is the crop you sow and the harvest
doesn't come for free. What delicious
irony that just a few weeks ago ol' Gabe was complaining about Microsoft Store
fees for developers.

The popular game developer and sales portal is apparently
unhappy with the state of PC hardware. Posting a help wanted ad on the careers
section of it website for an Industrial Designer it reads:

"“Valve is traditionally a software company. Open
platforms like the PC and Mac are important to us, as they enable us and our
partners to have a robust and direct relationship with customers. We’re
frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space though, so
we’re jumping in. Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really
changed in any meaningful way over the years. There’s a real void in the
marketplace, and opportunities to create compelling user experiences are being
overlooked.”

I'm not sure what ol' Gabe is after with this one. If he builds something that looks like a PS3
or Xbox then isn't he just building...a console? I mean if there's going to be holograms and
implants involved that might be something but this just seems like a case of
ruffled feathers. Watch a little less ST:Next
Generation Gabe, it's clouding your reality.

Must have been a really slow news week when gaming pundits
start waxing poetic about video game visuals as fine art. PCPER, and Kotaku have 3 articles between
them either showcasing or debating the art of video games.

It seems that video games are ever more stylized with
visuals instantly identifiable with a franchise or development studio. Just like an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo the
artist's work has an identifiable
signature. Borderlands, for
example, embraced an almost comic book treatment for its visuals. Nobody would ever confuse it with the almost
photo realistic(if you have the hardware) vistas of Skyrim or the Disney cartoon
feel of Orcs Must Die.

In video games, art is as critical a component as the
gameplay mechanics. Anyone who's ever
felt compelled to walk around in a game just to look at it knows this all too well. The late Ralph McQuarrie (of Star Wars fame)
would have been proud.

Admit it, if you've
played Skyrim for more than 5 minutes
there's no doubt you've probably spent at least a few of them just looking at
the sky and the trees. The game was
designed to be a feast for the eyes with thousands of hidden details just waiting
to reward the wanderer.

Still, is the art of Skyrim on par with Picasso? Or is it simply the industrial output of a
commodity product. Perhaps it's both
hovering somewhere around Warhol's 100
soup cans.